What happened
A beaten-down stock for much of this year, in recent days Estee Lauder (EL 1.70%) has been staging a bit of a comeback. According to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence, the well-known cosmetics company's share price had risen by 13% week to date as of early Friday morning. In retrospect that wasn't all too surprising -- after all, an analyst raised his recommendation to buy during the week.
So what
That analyst is Fulvio Cazzol from Berenberg, who on Wednesday upgraded his estimation on Estee Lauder to buy from neutral. He also slapped a $243-per-share price target on the storied cosmetics purveyor, which implies potential upside of almost 22% on the current level of the stock.
Cazzol's revised view is based on both the share price decline (the stock had been down by 27% year to date) and a rise in the consensus analyst earnings estimate. This puts it in buy territory, in his estimation.
The prognosticator also feels that Estee Lauder's fundamentals support the bullish new take. Among other improvements, he believes the company's fiscal 2024 organic sales will rise by 16% over the previous year, following a 5% decline in 2023.
Now what
The pundit class is certainly bullish on Estee Lauder as a group, and it seems investors are slowly coming around to agreeing with them. At the moment, the average analyst estimate for per-share annual earnings growth for fiscal 2024 is a whopping 59%, on revenue that's forecast to increase by 11%.
